Business Tech

Wearable Devices Require New Workplace Policies

If your employees are able to use wearable tech as a working tool, it is important to have a set of security and management protocols in place to protect your business' sensitive material and software, as well as the actual devices. Wearable tech devices in the workplace require additional security for software data and the devices themselves should they be damaged, stolen or misplaced. Protecting your business' sensitive information and thwarting any viruses that could leak into the virtual network is of the utmost importance in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) system.

Even if your business is unlikely to incorporate wearable tech as a working tool any time soon, it is wise to prepare your IT department for it, as wearable tech will soon be as trendy as smartphones. Some 300 million wearable devices to be shipped to the U.S. by 2018, notes futurist Daniel Burris. It is better to be proactive and prevent leaks and infiltrations of your business network than to be reactive and deal with damage control after the fact.

Wearable Tech in the Workplace

Why is wearable tech at the workplace trending? As smartphones did, it offers users the ability to do more things at one time. Wearable tech can help you participate in a meeting while on the go, check into work while on vacation or simply send information to headquarters without missing a word in a conversation with a client.

Wearable tech isn't just for fun anymore. It is proving to offer legitimate business applications to the workplace. One third of adults surveyed in the U.S. and United Kingdom have admitted that wearable tech has advanced their career development, reports Salesforce. It's starting to prove its worth for businesses, as well. In a study by Rackspace, wearable tech has shown to increase employee productivity by 8.5 percent. In addition, the research showed job satisfaction increased 3.5 percent within businesses where employees used wearable tech.

From an administrator's point of view, a business can monitor and track employees through their use of wearable tech, which can be a bonus, notes Business Bee. Wearable tech can also be a useful training tool. A trainee using Google Glass can be easily monitored by administrators through the device's video feed, reviewing recorded footage and helping that trainee improve on his or her techniques. For emergency responders, using wearable tech to pull up medical files on a patient on the fly can mean saving that person's life. All of this sounds fantastic if you're a business owner/administrator, however, there are still many questions about security issues surrounding wearable tech devices.

Protecting Data

The Digital Age is all about sharing knowledge in newer, easier ways. But security and privacy is just as important, especially in business. There are two issues here: protecting your privacy and respecting the privacy of other's. Although small wearable cameras have been effective for police forces in evidence gathering, bars in San Francisco have begun banning wearable devices like Google Glass at their establishments for fear of violating customers' privacy. That is one issue your business should keep in mind with the use of a BYOD system and wearable tech.

The U.K. has already established a Data Protection Act, which keeps businesses using wearable tech in line, making sure that any recordable information is privy to anyone included in that information. In the U.S., wearable tech could violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Any wearable tech that can produce, store and send information, like the Galaxy Gear watch, which has a voice recording feature, could be subject to violations of those laws.

Protecting your privacy and data is the other part of the security concerns with regards to wearable tech. Bring Your Own Device policies in the workplace, which covers mobile phones, laptops and iPads, must now be extended to include wearable tech. This would include updating existing rules and your business' network security infrastructure to detect and control outgoing and incoming data from these devices. Making clear which devices are acceptable in the workplace is step one. From there, IT departments must understand and manage how those devices work how they can be managed and protected.

IT may not be able to prevent all data seeping in and out from unauthorized wearable tech, but it can at least set up a system where administration is alerted of such activity, which then the company can act accordingly.

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